The British Government announced that it plans to learn lessons from the collapse of the Soviet Bloc by implementing central planning of alcoholic beverages. The drinks Tsar has stated that minimum prices for alcohol will be applied to halt binge drinking, doubling what poor people pay for beer.
But when did government ever really care about people, after slaughtering millions abroad, is this really for our benefit? Turn a few pages and you'll find the root of this story. Stella is in trouble, sales are down 20% in Belgium and labour unions are getting angry about 10% staffing cuts. You would hope that they go broke, but if minimum beer prices go ahead, we will be forced to pay more than market price for rubbish beer without the company having to provide any quality in return. This is therefore a bailout for the failed model of low quality beer.
These big "breweries" created ridiculously cheap brewing methods that make horrible, but cheap beer, alongside nasty alcopops for kids. They produce way too much and dump excess production onto student unions at discount and more money is put into promotion than production, so it seems?! They created binge drinking. Therefore, in the name of solving binge drinking, we the tax payer is being forced to bailout those who caused binge drinking. It sounds Orwellian, doesn't it? But this is the power of words, because, if we call this price fixing what it is, a bailout for rubbish beer, just like the bailout for rubbish banks that proceeded it, then it cannot be passed. We must call out these criminals for what they are.
The truth is, that artisan beer is on the rise and people are sick of rubbish drinks. Dwindling demand for poor quality beer has been masked to date by price cuts, but they are now scraping the barrel, so to speak. To avoid actually working and enhancing quality to avoid bankruptcy, the masterminds of big beer decided instead, over a flat pint of Fosters, to get government to force consumers to pay more for their tat. That way, the firms can cover their overheads and spend all the rest buying up small breweries and buying up TV and roadside adverts, attempting to use mind control to make us drink carbonated c$ap.
So in a way, this is also a bailout of the TV and Media companies who are suffering from less demand for advertising. Is this why the newspapers are not exposing the fraud of this bailout?
We will not see a true return of real ales, real lagers and decent wine unless we let the free market flush out the tat, as it would if left alone and as it did in days gone by, when Britain knew the rule of law. And where does it stop if we accept this? What next will they fix the price of? Must we pay extra for single leaf recycled toilet paper to save the paper companies, I mean, the planet?
Will government force us to pay a "fair amount" for donna kebabs to save us from obesity? The UN has afterall declared a war on obesity, so this is not so far fetched. Fortunately the donna kebab industry does not have enough weight, even if its customers do, but the precident is set if we allow this, and the floodgates would open. Its the equivalent of cash for clunkers, which then became cash for windows, cash for boilers, cash for pretty much everything that people already have and don't want to buy more of because Chinese imports are rubbish, and we don't work or make anything now anyway, so can't afford it.
But seriously, they are actually talking about controlling what we get paid. The Independent reported today that higher earners will be capped in their war against bankers. Will we ever see a Richard Branson again? The bankers who defrauded us with fake derivatives, bringing down our economy, should go to prison, and that includes the entire board of the Bank of England and all of the government regulators who let it happen, and yes, the ex Chancellor Brown. They are all criminals. Then, decent banker can take their place and earn what they like, so long as they deliver us good, sound pension schemes. We need more white collars in jail, not central planning of wages or expensive rubbish beer. I'll drink to that!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6983707/Cost-of-cheap-alcohol-will-double-to-curb-binge-drinking.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/6983142/Beer-supplies-to-run-dry-amid-Belgian-brewery-protests.htmlhttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/mps-call-for-curb-on-top-earners-after-supertax-flops-1867251.htmlPermanent link to the article:
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog.php?view=31412 
